


And the New Room

by 0hHeyThereBigBadWolf



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Future Fic, Multi, Original Character(s), Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 08:17:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14445156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0hHeyThereBigBadWolf/pseuds/0hHeyThereBigBadWolf
Summary: "This room wasn't always here, you know." Decades after the defeat of Pure Evil, Jenkins speaks to another Librarian about the appearance of another room within the endless Library.





	And the New Room

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, for this fic, pretty much pretend that Season 4 never happened. I wrote this a while ago and kinda forgot about it.

Asteria Stone stood with hands on her hips above the small form of her three-year-old daughter, who had fallen asleep on the floor of one of the many,  _many_ rooms in the Library.

Tucking a stray tendril of her dark bronze hair behind one ear, her keen blue eyes wandered up the tapestry, following along the shining lines that wove in and out through each other, names gleaming in the lighting that had softened itself so as to not wake the small child. Short and shapely, Asteria had bred true to her family's genetics, which tended to throw tough, small, and entirely-too-smart-for-their-own-good individuals. She was only 5'3", and her brothers weren't doing much better at 5'5". She was used to being short, however; she'd grown up around tall people, like Rigel and Regulus Carsen, who were both six feet to the inch, and their sister Vega, who topped them both by inches. Being short and pretty worked to her advantage, though, because nobody expected the pretty little ones to know how to bar fight with the best of them, as all Stones were known to do. It was a familial rite of passage: at least one good brawl was required before being officially considered a full-fledged adult.

Her original purpose for coming into the room was to retrieve Josephine, who had  _again_ snuck out of her room after bedtime, but now she found herself contemplating the walls, as she sometimes did. The walls of this particular room were covered in a kind of tapestry, though it wasn't fabric, or rather, not  _entirely_ fabric. The patterns and engravings appeared in the smooth wood as if they were entirely natural in being there, yet to the touch, they felt like fine silk instead of wood grain, a mystery all on its own. The names, each one etched in perfect, beautifully curling calligraphy, appeared in different colours, too. Green for the Librarians, silver for their Guardians, and black for those that were neither and for the children, still to young to be determined. Amber's name was already taking on a silvery tint, and Alexander's was starting to appear more green than black.

Lifting a hand, she lightly rubbed her thumb over an empty space beside Alexander and Josephine's names, a secretive smile pulling at her lips. James was going to  _freak,_ she just knew it.

"This room wasn't always here, you know."

She hastily dropped her hand and turned around to see a tall, neatly-dressed figure filling the doorway, lights gleaming off a head of silver-white hair. "Really? When did it show up?" Asteria asked curiously.

"Well, it  _was_ a locked door for several months after Mr. Jones finally got up the nerve to ask Ms. Kroger to marry him," Jenkins explained, taking steps into the room to stand beside her, hands clasped behind his back as he surveyed the shining walls. "It opened...let's see, before your aunt Thalia was born, but after Leon arrived, I do believe. I imagine it was waiting for all three trees to grow, so to speak."

Asteria stepped forward, reaching out again to trace her fingertips along the smooth surface of the wall; she started at her children's names, traced the line that stretched from them up to her and James, her name engraved in silver, his in black, then the one that led from her up to Clio Stone in rich green, then up to her grandparents' names at the very top, having to stand on the tips of her toes in order to reach.

_Cassandra Cybele Stone  
b. Apr 2nd, 1979_

_Jacob Matthias Stone  
b. Jun 27th, 1972_

There was a strange fade in the wall beside their birth dates, indicating that at some point, there had been a death date for the both of them, a date that was now erased. Nobody knew the reason, except for Jenkins, and whenever asked about it, he would only smile enigmatically and shake his head and sometimes murmur something about time travel always taking the long way around.

Asteria glanced over at the other names on the wall beside theirs. Flynn and Eve Carsen, Ezekiel and Cindy Jones. And also included on the wall, in the deep, shining gold of a Caretaker, with a tie to every family:  _Jenkins._ It made her smile, seeing his name included on the wall because she knew that the old knight was inwardly pleased that it was there, even if he'd never say it aloud, calling it ridiculously sentimental drivel whenever pointed out.

She glanced over at Jenkins again, a smile on her lips. "You knew them very well, didn't you?" she asked, jerking her chin towards the names at the top of the tree. In another room a few doors down, there were shelves upon shelves of books that chronicled the adventures of every Librarian and Guardian, dating all the way back to Charlene and Judson at the Library of Alexandria. without a doubt, the books belong to Jacob, Ezekiel, Cassandra, Flynn, and Eve were the most... _interesting_ ones to date. Her mother had read them to her when she was a child, and now she read them to Josephine and Alexander, the greatest bedtime saga  _ever._ But just reading about them was very different than actually  _being_ there to witness it in person.

He dipped his chin once. "Indeed. They came blundering into my very peaceful, quiet Annex, turned it into an absolute disaster area, made what few grey hairs I had left turn white, and generally made my life unpleasant," he answered with caustic wit, but then he glanced at the wall behind her once more. The corners of his mouth twitched up, just a little. "And I had the occasionally dubious privilege of witnessing them grow from hapless rank amateurs to somewhat acceptable Librarians."

Grinning, Asteria linked her arm through his head rested her head against his shoulder, or rather, against his arm; she was nowhere near tall enough to reach his shoulders, even in her best heels. 'Somewhat acceptable' was high praise from Jenkins, the closest he came to actually complementing anyone out loud. Hell, she hoped that when her own grandchildren saw her name on the wall, Jenkins would describe her as a somewhat acceptable Librarian, too.

The Caretaker stood for a moment, unmoving but pleased nonetheless, before saying, "I believe that young Miss Josephine ought to be returned to bed before her father notes her absence."

Asteria leant down and carefully picked up her daughter, settling the warm weight of Josephine in one arm as they walked to the door; Jenkins held it open for her.

"May I ask, do you know why she was in here?" the Caretaker asked. Josephine was known for sneaking into rooms, but usually ones with books or artefacts, things that she could touch and play with. She was particularly fond of the Chupacabra's room, as the furry old beast would always give her extra pieces of jerky whenever she visited.

She smiled and stroked a stray curl of the girl's hair back, which was the same rich, vivid red as Cassandra Stone's. The red hair was almost a trademark for women in their family. Asteria's own hair was the colour of old bronze rather than outright red, but Josephine's was shiny newpenny colour. "I think she was looking for a place for the room to put her new sibling's name," she replied with a sly grin, resting her free hand over her belly.

Jenkins' eyes rolled heavenward. "Oh, good Lord. At this rate, you'll have bred an army by the turn of the century," he sighed, but there was an unmistakable gleam of warmth in his eyes.

Asteria laughed softly, then stood up on her toes to kiss his cheek; even on her toes, he had to bend in order for her to reach. "Goodnight, Jenkins."

"Goodnight, Ms. Asteria."

As Jenkins walked away, heading in the direction of his lab, she watched him go for a moment, standing rooted in place. Elsewhere in the Library, she could hear the telltale clanking of swords as Vega taught Amber Jones how to duel Excalibur, the fifth century sword an eternal companion to the granddaughter of his best friend. The Back Door crackled as her brother Altair Stone returned from what might have been an artefact excavation in Egypt or a date in Paris with Meissa Jones. Shouts of delight echoed up the corridor as an old gargoyle chased the youngest Carsens, Logan and Stuart, from room to room. Asteria knew that if she went three rows down and two halls up, she would likely find her son Alexander sitting in the Reading Room, looking over his great-grandmother's journals and scribbling down his own ideas on mathemagics in a well-battered notebook. Her husband James might be there with him, or he might be down three flights of stairs, sitting with his other brother-in-law Alphard and enjoying a beer kept cold in the Fountain of Youth.

Smiling, Asteria glanced back at the newest room in the Library, where three individual trees formed one entire family on curious walls, where soon she would see another daughter's name added. All the names on the wall were her family, regardless of what their last names were, would always be family, here in a Library that breathed magic into their lives and wove bonds between the people which lived within it, both their home and their anchor. She turned her gaze upwards to the words engraved in beautiful, scrolling letters across the top of the doorframe:

_Familia non fini est sanguine._

_Family does not end with blood._


End file.
